This blog provides short, easy-to-digest summaries of recently published research relating to bullying, peer-aggression and peer-victimization. It is maintained by staff and students from the School of Psychological Sciences and Health at the University of Strathclyde.

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October 21, 2013

Recalled victimization, social support, and long term effects on self-criticism.

This post is by one of my current final year dissertation students, Gillian Scanlan. Thanks to Gillian for summarising this paper, she did a great job.

This study set out to identify if
recalled levels of parental support, peer support and peer victimization were
related to college students’ levels of self-criticism and self-reassurance in their
present life. The researchers were specifically interested in whether the
effects upon young adults of being bullied from the ages of 10-14 were
different according to their levels of recalled social support from both parents
and peers.

This study involved 200 college students aged 18 to
25 years old. Participants were given a series of questionnaires that measured current
levels of self-criticism as well as recalled relationships with parents and
peers. The recalled relationship with parents and peers were to be reported specifically when the participants were between
the ages of 10-14.

Victimization and Prosocial Behaviour: Men recalled experiencing higher
levels of physical victimization, e.g. being hit or punched by another peer,
than women did. Women reported that
their peers showed more acts of kindness and concern for them when they were
bullied.

Parental support: Increased level of support from both parents was
found to be associated with lower levels of self-hating and reduced feelings of
unworthiness. Increased support from parents also increased confidence and
self-assurance of a victim.Those who
recalled higher current levels of maternal care or higher levels of kindness
and concern reported higher levels of self-assurance.

Roles of peer relationships: Those who recalled more physical victimization (regardless of gender)
reported higher levels of self-criticism, self-hate and lower levels of
self-assurance. People who recalled experiencing more kindness and concern from
peers during a bullying incident in childhood reported lower levels of
self-hatred and higher levels of self-reassurance in their current life.

These results are interesting as it appears that
the increased social support a person receives in both their home environment
and their peer environment helps to create feelings of positivity and self-assurance, thus allowing a confident young adult to emerge. The results
furthermore show that low social support from both parents when being
victimized can have long term psychological effects upon a person’s emotional well-being
when they get into adulthood.

Overall

Overall, this study highlights the importance of good peer relationships and
parental care. It would appear from the findings that having kind and
supportive peers and parents from childhood plays an integral role in helping
to reduce the stress of negative social events.